


French

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen, stage verse + Sarah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 11:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17222993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Davey worries about his classes





	French

“French class is going to be the death of me,” Davey complained. Messily written, disorganized notes glared up at him from his desk. He was supposed to be better than this. It wasn’t fair for him to let himself get defeated by academics, not when his family was sacrificing everything to send him to school.

“You got through Latin alright,” Sarah reminded him. She was nose deep in a book about astronomy that she’d gotten from the library. It was thick, with a glossy cover, and pages that were still white and uncreased. The last thing Davey wanted to do was pull Sarah away from her treasure. Still, he had to bite his tongue to keep from launching into a description of his Latin class.

Latin had been okay, for a number of reasons. The teacher never asked Davey to speak, except to recite long passages along with the other students. Some of the texts were interesting, and verb tables and vocabulary lists had been written on the board each day, with neat, relaxing lines for Davey to copy. Memorizing things for this class had been almost relaxing, and there had never been any fear that the dead language might rise again and start demanding things of him.

“Did you know,” asked Sarah, without looking up from her book, “that astronomers were first able to notice the element helium because they observed an emission line across the sun’s atmosphere during a solar eclipse? They originally believed it was only found on the sun, but then they discovered, just five years ago, that it exists here on Earth. I’d give anything to see an eclipse.”

“I’d give anything to go back in time and ask the creator of the French language not to fill up every word with letters that nobody has any intention of pronouncing.”

“I’d give anything to be rich enough to afford a telescope.”

“I don’t have a head for languages.”

Sarah sighed. She closed the book, and looked at her brother. “You speak Yiddish. That’s a language.”

“Only because mama does.”

“Do you want me to look at your notes?”

“Even if I got 'em perfect it’d be no use. I’d still be expected to talk in class.” Davey tugged at his hair despondently. The first time he’d ever told Sarah that he didn’t like speaking in class, she’d laughed at him and asked if they could pretend that their bedroom was a classroom. This time she didn’t laugh. She’d seen enough times how just being around the boys from school could make him stammer and trip over his words. Sometimes it felt like his lips were numb, and his tongue was too big for his mouth.

Sarah was quiet for a long time. She got that way when there was a problem that she couldn’t neatly fix.

“Let’s just forget about it,” Davey said. “I’d rather talk about space with you anyway. French’ll still be here waiting for me when I come back to Earth.”


End file.
